Who are we?

Cindy Tham was a journalist from 1995, and worked with theSun newspaper and The Edge business and investment weekly. She has covered general, business and economic news, as well as written analysis on current issues. After all these years, she still thinks she has so much more to learn. And since she was not getting any younger, she decided it was time to end the long affair with print to explore what she could do with technology on the internet. She teamed up with journalists Jacqueline Ann Surin and Danny Lim to set up MalaysiaVotes.com to cover the 2008 general election, and later co-founded The Nut Graph with Jacqueline. Cindy used to write the Web Lyrical column for The Nut Graph. She has since resigned from the company.

Deborah Loh was an assistant news producer for the English News bulletin at ntv7 for two years before joining the New Straits Times. During her nine-year stint at the daily, she reported on general news and for the last four years was based in Putrajaya covering government and national affairs. She has a B.A. in Mass Communication from Goshen College, Indiana, USA. Her column Sideways used to run fortnightly in The Nut Graph. She was assistant news editor at The Nut Graph until August 2010 and remains a member of the collective that is maintaining the site.

Ding Jo-Ann read law at Manchester University, was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2002 and admitted to the Malaysian Bar in 2003. She practised as a litigation lawyer in Kuala Lumpur until 2009. In 2008 and 2009, she co-wrote several articles with senior lawyer Raja Aziz Addruse, published in the New Straits Times, on constitutional and human rights issues. From 2010 till 2012, she was the media monitor at the Centre for Independent Journalism and wrote their annual review on freedom of expression in Malaysia. She has volunteered with organisations such as Tenaganita, World Vision, and the Centre for Public Policy Studies. She started writing for The Nut Graph in September 2009 and continues to contribute as an editor and columnist in the collective that maintains The Nut Graph on a weekly basis. She is currently pursuing her Master’s in International Human Rights Law part-time with the University of Oxford.

Gan Pei Ling graduated from journalism at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. She interned at The Nut Graph in 2009 and returned as a full-time journalist in June 2010. She subsequently joined the now defunct weekly community paper Selangor Times as a staff writer. Her column at The Nut Graph, As If Earth Matters, won a Penang government environmental journalism award in 2011. She is currently pursuing an MA in Environment and Development at King’s College London as a Chevening scholar.

Jacqueline Ann Surin is the co-founder and the editor of The Nut Graph. She also co-founded MalaysiaVotes.com with Cindy Tham and Danny Lim in early 2008. A journalist since 1994 first with The Star, then The Edge and theSun, she is also the author of Shape of a Pocket. She gained an M.A. in Media Studies at Sussex University in England as a Chevening scholar, and studied journalism in the United States under the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship. In 2007, she received the Excellence in Opinion Writing Award from the Society of Publishers in Asia for her Shape of a Pocket column which she continues to keep at The Nut Graph. She was also named by London-based Article 19 as the Pioneering Women’s Voices Candidate for Malaysia in commemoration of International Women’s Day in 2007. As of September 2010, Jacqueline is part of the collective of writers and editors who is maintaining The Nut Graph as a weekly.

Koh Lay Chin is a journalist, columnist and former assistant news editor for the New Straits Times. She has a Masters of Science in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics. Now freelancing and on the hunt for new adventures, she believes there is a middle course to all things. She is currently a contributing journalist with The Nut Graph, and also rambles on her site www.laych.com.

Lainie Yeoh is an art director and a member of the collective that is maintaining The Nut Graph. She is also the editor of arts portal Kakiseni Blog.

Nick Choo has worked as a writer and sub-editor with theSun and Off The Edge. A composer and playwright, he has staged original musicals locally and abroad, including his musical The Edge, which workshopped at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (July 2008); and Follow The Light (November 2005), a winner in the 2005 Finley Awards for Independent Theatre (Western Australia). He is also the author of two books in Marshall-Cavendish (M’sia)’s Get Spooked! series. Nick graduated with a Masters of Arts in Journalism, Public Relations and Creative Industries from Murdoch University in WA. His column Merely Playing used to appear monthly in The Nut Graph. He was chief copy editor and graphic artist until August 2010 and remains part of the collective that is currently running The Nut Graph. Visit his website at www.nick-choo.com.

Shanon Shah has been trying to balance careers as a singer-songwriter, playwright and human rights advocate, “trying” being the operative word. He has worked and volunteered with NGOs such as Sisters in Islam, Suaram, Amnesty International, the Malaysian AIDS Council, WAO, Awam and the Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ). In 2006, Shanon was named Best Male Vocal in an Album at the 13th Anugerah Industri Muzik for his debut album Dilanda Cinta. His first full-length play Air Con premiered to rave reviews and packed houses during its July, 2008 run at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center. In 2009, it won several Boh Cameronian Arts awards including for best Malay script. In the past, Shanon has been a columnist for the New Straits Times and theSun. He has also been published in Kakiseni.com and in several book anthologies. His Malay-language column Secubit Garam used to run every fortnight in The Nut Graph until he left to pursue his Masters in the UK. He is currently pursuing his PhD.